Many establishments now provide self-service copy machines which are operated either on a coin basis, or by payment for the number of copies used. The coin operated machines are adequate to protect against unauthorized copying, but are inconvenient, and costly for making large volumes of copies. The latter copy systems are found in stationery stores printing shops and book stores. These establishments have machines more suitable for making large volumes of copies, with payment usually on an "honor" system. After making the copies, the customer will bring the copies to the counter and tell the cashier, or store operator, the number of copies made. The problem is that the operator does not know exactly how many copies a customer has made.
A cashier or clerk could go look at the copy machine counter but this is a difficult and time consuming task as the counter is usually small and not easy to read. Even if a clerk were to go to a copy machine and read the counter, another customer may have started making copies, which makes an accurate reading time consuming and even more difficult. The clerk would then have to ask the second customer how many copies were made, and subtract those from the count shown on the copy machine counter. Moreover the clerk operator would have to record the count before and after the user makes the copies. Otherwise the clerk or cashier, must either count all the copies made if they don't go to the machine and record the actual count. What they do in most all cases, is depend upon the honesty of the customer to truthfully state the actual count. They usually have no choice as they are to busy to count all the copies the customer has made and even this may be inaccurate. The customer may have made poor quality or defective copies and simply discarded them before coming to the cashier. There is no present way of knowing. These inefficient methods mean losses to shop owners of amounts that have been estimated to reach hundreds of dollars a day, depending upon the copy volume and number of copy machines in the shop. Obviously the task is sufficiently difficult that it is more expedient to simply rely on a customers honesty.
Therefore, it is one object of the present invention to provide a method, accurate to counting the number copies made by customers in stores having self-serve photocopy machines.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a store with a method of accurately determining the number of copies made on one or more copy machines without having to rely on customer or actually counting the copies.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for accurately determining the number of copies made on one or more copy machines which can be remotely controlled by a clerk in the a shop.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for indicating accurately the number of copies made on a photocopy machine disable the machine until the copies are recorded, or paid for.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a apparatus and method for determining accurately the number of copies made on a copy machine which gives a separate, accurate count of each copy size.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a method of remotely controlling the operation of a copy machine from a convenient location, such as the cash register.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for remotely controlling one or more copy machines to interrupt use of a copy machine until a copy count has been recorded and paid for by the customer.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for remotely determining accurate copy count for a copy machine which utilizes existing building wiring.